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Strong arming your way to the dinner table.

Bradymom's picture

After a 2 year history of my MIL acting like a jealous, completely inappropriate lunatic & the last week of her spree pushed me over the edge *** we made the boundary-- no visits at our home! With that said lately there has been a big push for her to come to our house. We have had this boundary since January & it's been respected. No pop in visits, no asking to come... But lately. Ugh. Perhaps because the holidays are coming. She has told other family she thinks it's terrible we won't let her come to our home.

***okay here's the final straw. Now mind you this is not ALL of what she did for the two years. This was the last two visits to our home. Short history. MIL is a full on hoarder. I am not. When I moved in DH house was beautiful & clean & fresh & organized... With exception of the kids rooms. They are a disaster. Couldn't hardly walk into them. Drawers were stuffed with current clothes & 4 sizes too small clothes. Nothing had been purged. We got married. Doubled people in house. Lots of much needed clean out happened. Okay... So I get a call from MIL she says when I was over last night (I wasn't there) I saw you were throwing some things away that was not trash. I took it & hid it in the dresser upstairs, don't throw it away again. I spoke to stepson about it. I told him you don't care about his memories that were made before you were in the home, he seemed ok & I promised to advocate for him in the future. Now I was shocked. Shocked. I asked a few follow up questions & she truly wasn't trying to start a fight, surely it was bc of her hoarding & obvious ridiculous view. What was saved from the trash? A scummy clear shower curtain liner with three broken eyelets & a torn poster with water damage. She added that my husband also felt it wasn't okay to throw these things away & as a result we would be placing a large box in garage & she would come weekly to sift thru trash & decide what was really trash. I noncofrontationally told her I would talk to husband about this & she told me NO he was to burdened for me to discuss this with him. I talked to DH. Conversation NEVER happened & he had no idea she went thru our trash. He talked to son. He was not concerned at all about the saved trashed. Next two days later, there was a bday part for another skid. She texted me asking what we were doing for bday. I told her on Friday we are having a kid party & Monday would celebrate with family at her house (as discussed earlier). She began a texting rage telling me she would be coming to the kid party & she is a grandma & would not nor has she ever been restricted from the house. My DH got on the phone with her, as we were together when this happened & she completely flipped out. He told her she does need an invite & her bevahior to me was not acceptable, etc. It was high trauma drama. Eekkkk. Well she didn't come but she sent crazy texts every 20 min all day. & like said bday celebration happened 3 days later at her house for SD. So. We have a meeting to discuss all the crap & set some boundaries. One being no visiting at our home. We did say that when she is able to respect us & our place as parents & the boundaries become fluid we would work into a more normal situation. Nearly a year has passed. No respecting has happened. At. All. Now big push to come to our home. And DH would do whatever I want... Bc he's dealt with this insanity for 40 years but supports me, knowing his mom is wonky. I say No way. I feel like I'm drowning when I think about her coming to our home again. My thought is- you can't strong arm your way to the dinner table. You have to be friendly to be friends. Am I wrong? Too harsh? Thoughts?

Comments

Bradymom's picture

That's how I feel. Having someone go thru your trash is a weird violation to begin with. But to do it in efforts to stir up problems with the stepparent/child relationship & create a need for you as advocate THEN lie about conversations with my DH. This all caused lots of hurt, tears, talks, undoing. Keeping her at arms length by not having access to our home & her odd attachment with our stuff is the only way I can manage to have any peace in having her in our lives at all.

Bradymom's picture

Thank you for the validation. It's hard because I am the newest to the family who have a long history of dealing with this craziness. Also because I am a second wife there's some feeling in her part of "losing son" again.

Onewillfullstepmom's picture

Stick to your guns, the crazy MIL'S of which I am no stranger, need to learn boundaries. When my DH and I were still dating but living together, we went away for a weekend. My MIL went to our home to get something and then "cleaned" the house, including going through DH's drawers and folding his clothes including his underwear. DH was 29 at the time. She also went through SD's drawers on another occasion, including one where I had kept clothing that I was keeping to put in her memory box and took things to donate without asking.

If she is going to act like a child then you need to treat her like one, keep the boundary until she has thought about what she has done, made amends and shown she will change her behavior. Maybe she needs a sticker chart! Wink

Also isn't claiming to have a talk with DH that never happened and then telling your skid that you are destroying memories from before you were around kind of a BM move???

Jsmom's picture

My MIL is not welcome here either...Needed boundaries and they helped tremendously.

Keep her out...